This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Most individuals and organizations, such as businesses and governmental agencies, utilize computers on a daily basis to perform a variety of functions. These functions may include, for example, email, internet access, word processing, computer-aided design, media streaming, and many others. Indeed, individuals and organizations not only utilize their own computers to perform these functions, but since many of the functions are “cloud-based” most individuals and organizations utilize servers in data centers around the globe to perform many of these functions.
As organizations grow, the number of users and, thus, computers and associated devices, such as file servers, email servers, routers, etc., increase as well. Hence, many organizations utilize Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM) tools to manage such systems. The ITOM tools may include policies, processes, and procedures to design and maintain the computers and associated functionalities for an organization. For example, ITOM tools may keep track of user computers and associated software, servers, routers, etc., within an organization so that administrators can determine when users have been added or removed, when equipment has been added, removed, or needs to be upgraded, when software needs to be updated, etc.
When dealing with individuals or small organizations, such tasks can be relatively straight forward and easy to perform. However, as organizations and their associated information technology (IT) infrastructure grows, designing and maintaining such systems can be a difficult task. To facilitate the management of IT systems in such organizations, discovery services are available to provide administrators a process by which devices, software, and associated functionalities may be discovered and mapped. Some of these discovery services may be cloud-based where an ITOM service provider maintains one or more datacenters that can facilitate discovery services within an organization's network or networks to perform such discovery services, while other discovery services may be performed “on-premises” by IT administrators utilizing discovery software residing within the organization's computer network.
The resulting map of devices, software, and associated functionalities produced by the discovery service may be utilized by IT administrators to design and maintain an organization's computer network. For example, using a map produced by a discovery service, an IT administrator can monitor the status of the hardware or software connected to provide a software service of the computer network. Such discovery services may require that an IT administrator configure how the discovery service will operate, for example, by manually creating a discovery profile used to identify aspects of IT systems to be discovered.